Luck of the Draw, the Wheel of Fortune
by theicingandcherryontop
Summary: For many years the fate of a nation ravaged by disaster teeters on the outcome of two men locked in a slow game of strategy and chance, but plans are fallible and Lady Luck is a faithless mistress indeed.
1. Prologue: Setting of the Board

/**

*There's already some good Taiki-looking-for-Gyousou fanfics out there, but no one seems to have really concentrated on what happened to Gyousou six years ago when he vanished. Probably because all you can really do is take a stab in the dark, since it's _Gyousou_ and what on earth could happen to make someone as awesome as he is go AWOL. This was the best I could come up with, and it turned out better than I thought it would, so I decided to post it.

*I've gone through Shore at Twilight inside out, backwards and forwards, then repeated the process. This is as accurate as I can make it. Curse you Kaei and your multiple explanations for the same event! BTW, my pet theory is that Kaei is one of Asen's spies and that's who keeps ratting Risai out, but it didn't make it in here. Also, the two year gap between the youma appearing, and then them appearing almost overnight, drove me batty.

*Taiki's horn in this is as central to the plot as the One Ring is in Lord of the Rings, though not in the same way. I'll just say upfront that it is the biggest _Deus ex machina_ ever written in this.

*One day I should write a story that doesn't take place over a massive span of time. Hmm, wonder when that will be.

**/

* * *

_You didn't kill those people because you were bitter, bitterness is a paralytic. __L__ove__ is a much more __vicious__ motivator. – BBC's SHERLOCK__, Sherlock Holmes_

Prologue: Setting of the Board

When Asen was growing up there was a girl who lived next door to him named Keika who was ten years his elder. When he was five he asked her to marry him, and she laughed, saying to ask again after growing up. But when he was ten she was taken away from him.

Her father had died the year previous, and her mother suddenly had to be the sole provider for the children. In addition the taxes had risen ever since the new king was enthroned. The month before her twentieth birthday her family was evicted; the worst fate that could happen to someone in Tai with winter setting in. His parents took pity on them and let them temporarily moved in, but they had no money to buy food and his parents weren't that generous. When Keika turned twenty she would be given her own plot of land, but she was a city girl who had never even seen a farm in her life. Even if she sold it, what then? Both Asen's and Keika's mother declared they would turn her out on her birthday, but the money Keika made working ceaselessly barely scraped together enough money for a small daily meal, never mind other necessary expenses such as rent and coal. Each night he heard her crying herself to sleep, the sobbing increasing the nearer her birthday crept. Keika had no future.

Then on the eve of her dreaded birthday, as she was weeping and begging her mother, a knock came at the door. Royal messengers had arrived inviting her to the Inner Palace, as a concubine.

Keika had blossomed into an extraordinarily pretty young woman, and many of their more malicious neighbours had said if she wanted to survive she would have to sell herself. In a sense it was true. Keika was taken to live in a luxurious palace and her family was given a comfortable monthly living expense, in return for Keika's _services_. Asen vowed he would see her again.

He remembered Keika sighing dreamily whenever men in armour passed by, and, due to causalities from skirmishes with corrupt officials the new king was purging, there were plenty of openings in the military and plenty of opportunities for a youngster to rise high. By the time he was 30 Asen had been given registry on the Immortal Register as a commander, and a decade later he was promoted to General of the Right. He finally had the status to visit the Inner Palace, on the pretext of seeing the king.

It took a while to locate Keika, and when he finally did she didn't remember him. Eventually, after much describing of her family and his, she was able to dimly recall that there did used to be a boy she babysat occasionally living next door. He asked her to marry him again, and she laughed,

"And have our ceremony at His Majesty's gallows? Thanks, but I am quite comfortable here."

Asen kept coming to see her until she considered him something like a lapdog she could vent her complaints to. His Majesty had been paying her rival two doors over more attention than her recently. The servants bowed a fraction lower to the girl down the hall, and came more slowly when she called for them. The pillows weren't plump enough. The tea not sweet enough, and when she requested more sugar it was too sweet. She hadn't gotten a new dress in a _month_.

Keika the Imperial Concubine was very different than Keika the Girl Next Door, but he still loved her. The more he saw her the more he wanted her, but she always laughed away his advances; she enjoyed the privileges and luxury awarded to her too much to jeopardize them with an affair. Not even with a man in armour.

During a particularly trying period there was a big ruckus as the General of the Left retired and, skipping over many more obvious candidates, promoted a young sub-commander as her replacement. Asen formed cordial relations with Gyousou, since it was beneficial to be on good terms with the other two Oushi generals, but was too preoccupied with trying to win Keika's heart to pay him much mind. They got on well and Gyousou was extremely competent – despite what malcontents muttered when they were absolutely sure he wasn't around – and so there was never any need to. But he was _too_ competent.

During a particularly magnificent, though unaffordable, festival hosted by the king the rulers of neighbouring kingdoms were invited, including the king of En. It was arranged that Gyousou would face off against the king of En three times during the festival. Keika sat in the luxurious viewing box with the other concubines and watched in rapt attention. At the end of the last match when Gyousou won she cheered louder than anyone else.

The whole country was swept with Gyousou-mania and Keika was hit worse than anyone. Unplump pillows were forgotten as she sighed dreamily in describing for the hundredth time the exact moment when the king of En surrendered. Gyousou was all she ever talked about now. How strong he was, and how amazing his sword skills were. How dashing his snow white hair was, how fierce and piercing his red eyes were. How she had always liked older men.

"He's forty years younger than you!"

"He _looks_ older."

"So do I, and I'm only a fourth that difference!"

Keika laughed. "Do you think the black or red dress would make him notice me more? I think I'll go with red, it has more of _those_ connotations."

Talking with Keika like this squeezed his heart and filled his chest with leaden resentment, but he was addicted to her and couldn't keep away, no matter how it hurt. The resentment settled in permanently as even when Keika wasn't around Gyousou's praises would be sung by the king, or someone in the hallway, or one of his own men, or the ridiculously numerous musicians. Hearing Gyousou's praises always made him think of Keika saying them, even if they didn't proceed from her mouth, and no matter where he went all he heard was that name. Worse still, people started to call them the twin jewels in the crown, Gyousou and Asen. It was always Gyousou and Asen, never Asen and Gyousou, not matter that he had become general _first_. Gyousou's accomplishments would be described in great detail, and then his own would be added like an afterthought. What made it truly unbearable was how sickeningly unexaggerated the stories of Gyousou's triumphs that flowed like treasured honey out of Keika's mouth were.

The resentment reached a boiling point near the end of KyouOu's reign, when the people of Tetsui barricaded their storehouses and Gyousou was to be sent to deal with the rebellion. He had already confided in Asen that he planned resolve the situation without any civilian casualties, and how Keika had heard about it he couldn't say, but she came to him blotchy faced and tear stricken.

"He'll be killed. Oh, why must he be so noble and kind and honourable? Oh I can't stand it, the thought of never seeing him again…! Asen-kun, you need to help me, I must convince him. Please, just arrange for me to be able to meet him in private."

He knew for a fact Gyousou wouldn't alter his plans just to ease Keika's mind and that he would never even consider doing anything with the king's woman. Or any woman for that matter; Gyousou was much too dedicated to his work to spare time for something like romance. So he arranged it as Keika requested.

The next morning she was found dead. Her cold fingers clutched a dagger embedded in her heart, and were smeared in ink from the note she left behind saying, _He wouldn't accept my heart, so there is no more use for it_.

Asen confronted Gyousou, who was entirely unshaken; being a soldier had acclimatized him to gory deaths. "She was just a vain, spoilt pet of the king who was silly enough to fancy herself in love with a man she had only seen at a distance. Her life certainly does not rank above the hundreds of others in Tetsui, and since she killed herself over nothing more than a sharp rebuke, clearly it wasn't worth living."

"She loved you."

"She had loyalties to the king as a concubine and no business falling in love with someone else."

Gyousou rode off to Tetsui, and Asen hoped he died there. But he didn't. The Tetsui incident won Gyousou praise for solving the whole thing without a drop of blood being spilt. Except that of a woman named Keika. But no one remembered that.

The king fell not long after, and Gyousou was instrumental in maintaining the order of the Provisional Government for the next ten years. At the end of ten years Gyousou went to Mt. Hou. Asen didn't. Every single person chose Gyousou, so the kirin surely would as well. And Taiki did.

Gyousou was now king, and a king makes more enemies than a general does. Gathering up a following angry at Gyousou was easy, one only had to sniff out the trail of corruption and one would find an army of people scared at having their crimes exposed, bitter at losing their positions, or having vowed vengeance for an executed loved one. A just king has just as many angry citizens as an unjust one.

Asen was finished biding his time. He would destroy everything dear to Gyousou, just as Gyousou had done to him.

* * *

/**

*I freely admit that I royally suck at writing romance. Luckily for me Asen is a psychopath who is killing a country because of, according to what Risai thinks anyway, "personal animosity", so no one really wants a nice fluffy romance out of him. I just needed a reason for his over the top personal animosity towards Gyousou, and romance was my shameless fallback, despite the fact I can't write it. Blame SHERLOCK, that one quote at the top is what inspired this bit. Maybe I should have gone with Detective Conan logic and had his motive for murder be Gyousou threw a coat hanger at him or broke his fishing pole. Because, you know, people _always_ commit murder for things like that. At least in Detective Conan.

**/


	2. Ch1: The Opening Moves

_A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. - B.F. Skinner_

Ch1: The Opening Moves

Tetsui was a special place to Gyousou, and he truly did desire to defend it. And it was that desire that made him suspicious.

When the reports of rebellion in Bun reached him he had merely sent a couple of generals off to deal with them. And then the rebels took Tetsui hostage. Rebels holing up in Bun were hardly new, but, as any citizen of Tai knew of General Saku and the Tetsui Shields, either the rebels were extraordinarily ignorant or aimed specifically to make themselves Priority Number 1 on the king's agenda. Most rebels had low goals and poor organization, and thus making placing themselves in the path of the king's wrath was the last thing they wanted, no matter what they professed. Only insurrectionists were different. Gyousou was sure to come to Tetsui if it was invaded, so that was the most logical recourse for someone aiming to lure Gyousou out.

And that's why he went.

If the rebels were able to anticipate his reaction it could only mean that the one planning this knew how he thought. Gyousou absolutely no evidence beyond his gut feeling on who that was, so he went. But he made sure to divide the Oushi Army of the Right in half first.

For some time now he had sensed an indescribable change in Asen. When it started or how Asen had actually changed he couldn't say, so he said nothing. Nobody else noticed anything, and Gyousou himself wasn't positive it wasn't just his imagination. But his instincts told him to not trust Asen.

Whether it was Asen or not who was the mastermind, as a recently enthroned king Gyousou was bound to be the target of every corrupt official who had seized power in the interim. Individually they were not a threat, but if they united against him it would mean a bloody civil war, so Gyousou had prevented that with the Winter Hunt. He was careful to keep Asen out of that affair completely by sending him off to Ren with Taiki, so he was certain none of the most obvious candidates to form a rebellion had been rescued from execution by Asen. It was a precaution, and perhaps an unnecessary one, but Gyousou's instincts had saved his life many times.

In the case of Tetsui his instincts said going was walking right into a trap laid out specifically for him by someone close to Gyousou if not Asen himself. But at the same time he could hardly steer Tai into a new era while constantly checking his back for assassins hidden among his closest retainers. If there was a person hiding in the shadows Gyousou would force them to expose themselves by obediently stepping into their trap.

Of course, he didn't leave Kouki vacated. Among the military officers left behind were Gashin and Ganchou, who were his subordinates from his days as General of the Left, and Risai. He doubted the mastermind (if there was one) was Risai because they had only met half a year ago and the mastermind (if Gyousou had not imagined him/her) knew his thought process well. Also, not to say she didn't understand strategy or plan her movements, Risai was more inclined to react rather than plot.

With those three in charge of the military back at home combined with the countless civil servants occupying every inch of the palace, he felt safe leaving Taiki behind. It's not like he could have taken a kirin to the battle lines with him anyways, and with the combined vigilance of his shirei and retainers it was impossible to hurt him. Gouran was definitely a match for any assassin.


	3. Ch2: Unpredictable Stroke

_I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. - Franklin D. Roosevelt_

Ch2: Unpredictable Stroke

It was all too easy to instigate a rebellion in Bun Province, the only thing remotely challenging was manipulating the rebels from the capital. He forced them center their rebellion in Tetsui, and it _had_ to be Tetsui. At the end of KyouOu's reign Gyousou had marched to Tetsui and returned a glorified war hero. This time, at the end of his own reign, Asen was determined he wouldn't return at all.

A sneak attack was the only way to go: he had no hope of winning against Gyousou in one on one combat, and any rebel army he raised was sure to be less equipped, less trained, and less numerous than the Imperial armies Gyousou had at his command. So Asen had meticulously planned to lure Gyousou from the palace, and ambush him. With anyone else he was sure it would be a fail-safe plan, but Gyousou has been called his twin jewel in the crown for a reason. Even now he wasn't completely sure, despite his precautions, that Gyousou didn't suspect him.

But Taiki was a different matter. And killing a kirin is a sure way to ensure the king's death.

Gyousou was not a fool, but because Taiki's defenses looked impregnable he felt secure leaving him behind, forgetting that the one those defenses protected was just a gullible child.

Gyousou's absence paved a clear path for Asen to start his Kouki plans, which all centered on rumours. His carriers who circulated them knew to say at the end _but don't tell the Taiho_. Perhaps it worked a bit too well, because as majority of the ministers were determined to swaddle that child in cotton strips and shield him from the world it took a while before someone _did_ tell Taiki. But when he saw the child anxiously peering through accounts of rebellions in Bun Province and asking each person who passed if there was any news, only to sigh each time he was told everything was fine, Asen knew Taiki had fallen into his trap.

He loaded his arms up with documents and passed Taiki, who called out to him with the same question he asked everyone else. Asen pretended to hesitate, "Well… I'm not sure… the others wouldn't like it if I said too much… and you're so young…"

Taiki protested desperately, "I can handle it! I want to help Gyousou-sama too! It's just nobody will tell me anything, so how can I?"

"I guess… you _are_ the Taiho so leaving you out isn't really an option…"

Taiki caught his breath, "Please."

Asen glanced around hesitantly, "Risai would kill me. If the others find out I told you…"

"I won't tell! I'll be careful! They'll never know, so please tell me! You're the only one who didn't just say there are no assassins and it's only gossip. Even Seirai, even Risai told me that. I already know it's not gossip, or why would everyone be trying to hide it from me?!"

Asen beckoned Taiki into a deserted corridor, and lowered his voice to a whisper, "Whenever I hear something, I'll tell you. Just promise me one thing, to help set my mind at ease."

"Anything!"

"Promise me, no matter what I say, you will _not_ send your shirei off to Bun Province."

"Send my shirei off?" Taiki looked like this had never occurred to him, and Asen was glad he had the foresight to bring it up.

"I know you want to help His Majesty very much, but you must promise to _not_ send your shirei to aid him. Your own safety is very important as well. Promise?"

"… I promise."

Asen smiled, "You're a good child. Well, I heard that His Majesty is in dire straits. According to my sources…"

After that Taiki would give Tansui and Seirai the slip to seek Asen out and hear more 'news' from him. Each time Asen surveyed Taiki's demeanor for signs of guilt, but found only worry: Taiki was keeping his promise. So the 'news' kept getting worse and worse, until as the day of Gyousou's assassination approached he was forced to play his last card and tell Taiki the rebels had actually attacked Gyousou. This was risky as, while there were boundless rumours about assassins trying to lure the king out, there were no rumours saying Gyousou had actually been attacked. On the contrary, they had an official report saying he had crossed the mountains safely, though that would soon be remedied. However, for the moment there was no reason for the Taiho to think the king was being attacked, so if Taiki let this slip to anyone they were bound to wonder who was feeding him misinformation. But his risk was rewarded in the nick of time.

The next time he saw Taiki the child looked not only worried and upset, but guilty. "I sent the shirei. I'm sorry."

_Took him long enough_. Asen drew his sword quickly. No one was around, but he would still have to be fast.

Taiki looked concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Gyousou's dead." _At least he is if those rebels pulled off their side of the bargain. If not, once you are he will be._

"You're lying –" Taiki, who had begun to back away instinctively, froze.

"Too bad you've only got two shirei." Asen swung his sword down, "Your mistake was choosing Gyousou."

Taiki moved _fast_, but not fast enough to completely dodge. Whatever he'd hit was in the head vicinity, so it must be vital, but Asen could only feel the resistance of his blade biting into something hard, his other senses were useless. His hearing rang with the indescribably agonized scream of a beast wounded, betrayed, distraught, and grief-stricken and his sight was blocked by the heavy dust clouds swirling through the red air surrounding him. The ground under his feet heaved and Asen fell and rolled. He tried to get up, to get away, and the ground tilted and shuddered. He felt _thud_s as debris was tossed around him, and there was an impact with his stomach that caused black spots in his red vision. Amid the chaos he saw a gleam, and pulled his twisted, battered body towards it. He grasped the glow without comprehending why, just as the sky became blue again and the earth stopped rolling.

He dimly looked at the light he'd grabbed and realized it was an animal horn. A kirin horn. That must have been what he'd hit. Was it vital?

"TAIHO!"

The cry and sound of people rummaging through rubble brought Asen back to reality. He quickly realized that Taiki was nowhere nearby and he was in the wake of a shoku, specifically a meishoku brought about by the scream of a kirin. He was also clutching a bloody kirin horn in one hand, a bloody sword in the other, and otherwise covered in blood that was not his own. It wouldn't take a genius to guess what happened.

He quickly stuffed the horn into his inner robe and sheathed his sword. Better to ruin the blade by sheathing it while still bloody than have to use it in his disoriented state to fend off the loyal people who rushed to Jinjuu Manor to find their Taiho. Several servants nearby recognized him, and carried him off for medical attention due to the enormous bloodstains on him. He passed numerous groups of white faced people demanding to know if he'd seen what happened to Taiki, and said all that he'd seen was Taiki go into the Seiden.

He told the servants he could manage, and they should join the search party for Taiki. Since they wanted to do just that anyways they raced off without questioning how even an immortal could lose that much blood and still be able to manage. It would have been bad if he was found to be unwounded, and in any case, he needed to confirm the assassination on Gyousou was successful, and figure out how to deal with this unexpected situation.

Gyousou might have taken half his fighting force with him to Bun, but of his remaining 6250 soldiers there were more than enough loyal to Asen alone that he could force his way into Nisei Palace – dwelling of the hakuchi and phoenixes – if need be. However, they freely opened the gates to him who came to "confirm the damages to the castle and its personnel."

One step inside was more than enough to prove the assassination attempt on Gyousou had been as successful as the one on Taiki: the hakuchi was alive. In blind rage he swung his sword at it, and the resistance the bird's body gave beneath his blade was like that of water, and likewise the hakuchi was about as injured by the blade as a wave would be. Asen felt frustration build up inside. He'd hoped that killing the hakuchi would kill the king simultaneously, or failing that convenient method, at least give him the foot to authorize measures that would ensure Gyousou's demise.

Asen turned to a Nisei retainer, "Go get me a pheasant!"

The man scampered away staring fearfully at his unsheathed sword, which Taiki's blood had crusted onto despite his attempts to clean it. Asen wondered if kirin blood had some special property that made it impossible to wash away. He would need a new sword, but for the time being the one he had was more than adequate to kill a regular bird and chop its feet off. As if anyone would be able to tell the difference.

Asen motioned to his commander with the same hand holding the bloody feet. "I'm going to Bun. You deal with everything going on here, and don't let anyone know I'm gone."

"And what about the retainers here? When they tell what you did…"

"Kill them all. Don't let anyone escape."

"Yes, sir."


	4. Ch3: Baffling Movements

_Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites. – Francois de la Rochefoucauld_

Ch3: Baffling Movements

It might take an army two weeks to cross Zui and reach Bun, but for one man flying above the clouds on a kijuu it took only 6 hours. The Imperial forces had withdrawn into their camps, with soldiers huddled together outside tents haphazardly all over the place. It was a strange sight to see in Gyousou's carefully disciplined military, and proof the chain of command was in disarray. But Gyousou was not dead. The rebels were nowhere in sight, and it took him an additional two hours to locate the man he'd left in charge of the rebellion hiding in the mountain passes. The sight of him still alive and hiding made Asen livid.

"You call this an assassination! What happened!"

The man looked confounded and frustrated, "He vanished, mid-battle."

"_Vanished?_ What do you mean _vanished_?!"

The man replied angrily, "I mean _vanished_, as in one second he's standing there and the next he's _not_ standing there."

"YOU LET HIM SLIP AWAY!"

"NO!" the man stamped his foot angrily. "He didn't go anywhere, just disappeared into thin air! I was one of the ones fighting him myself at the time, and he was just about to chop my head off when suddenly he _wasn't_. "

"You stinking liar…"

"It's true! It was at the appointed time, with the sun blazing directly overhead, and suddenly he's gone in broad daylight! If I wanted to lie I would make up a more believable one!"

_The appointed time_. The reason he had chafed at Taiki's delay in breaking his promise was the executions were meant to be simultaneous, to throw the court into confusion. Taiki had just sent his shirei away in time for when Gyousou's assassination was scheduled. They had both disappeared at the same time.

Asen pointed his sword at the man's throat. "What happened when he disappeared?"

"Nothing!"

"Nothing? No red sky, or trembling earth, or high winds?"

"No, he just wasn't standing there anymore."

_Are the two disappearances unrelated after all? _"Are you holding back any information, because if you are…"

The man panicked. "I'm not! I've told you everything! I don't know anything else!"

"I see." Asen swung his arm, and the man's body and head fell to the ground separately. "Then you're of no more use to me."

He surveyed the land before him, weighing his options. Coming to a decision, he lit the signal to alert his commander of his presence, and an hour and a half later the man appeared before him.

The commander bowed. "Please excuse my tardiness, Sougen was hard to slip away from unnoticed. General, you summoned me?"

"This man," Asen indicated the decapitated corpse of the rebel leader, "informed me that Gyousou vanished into thin air, and that's all the rebels know. Have the leaders of Gyousou's armies any additional information?"

The commander shook his head, just as confounded as the dead man had been. "Whatever happened, none of us were informed of it beforehand. I followed your orders and commanded those I trusted to let the rebels slip through to the king and reduce the Imperial forces in the heat of battle, but just as the rebels and my soldiers had the king cut off from all the others he vanished. The whole fight was thrown into confusion, which let me further reduce Sougen's forces without anyone realizing, and both sides withdrew. Sougen's taken charge and spread men out all over the countryside to locate Gyousou, but no one has yet. He's even sent a pigeon to Kouki with the tidings. Your orders?"

Asen's chest was filled with searing disappointment; this rendezvous was less fruitful than he would have believed possible. If he had the time he would have stayed himself to search, but if he wanted to be able to manipulate the ministers he needed to arrive around the same time as the pigeon.

"My orders are as follows: Don't reveal yourselves. If anyone finds out what we've done, _we'll_ be done. Stay with the army under Sougen and monitor all communications that arrive to him. Make sure you are the first to hear about it if Gyousou's located, before Sougen himself. Don't let the news reach anyone else, especially Sougen, and report to me right away. If you can keep on subtly decreasing the numbers of those who aren't loyal to us, that would be perfect."

His commander smiled grimly. "With all the chaos no one will think anything of it if troops scattered willy-nilly searching are 'killed by rebels'."

"Put those you trust at the forefront of the search, and check all the mountains and caves around here. If he's hiding, those are the perfect places. I'll come right away if you call, so don't try to take him on yourselves unless you have no choice. We can't let him vanish a second time. And be discreet. No one must suspect you."

"Understood." The man bowed, and took his leave.

Asen saddled his kijuu, still exhausted from the ride there, and flew back to Kouki. Since all his plans had turned to ash around him, he needed to at least use the power of the government to hunt down his enemy.


	5. Ch4: Moving in the Dark

_Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove. - P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!_

Ch4: Moving in the Dark

One moment he was battling rebels, the next he was falling through a golden light. When he finished the sword stroke he had been aiming at a rebel's head he was standing in complete darkness.

Gyousou glanced around suspiciously and stood in a defensive position, wondering what on earth had just happened. His surroundings carried the damp, stuffy air of a place deep under the earth, and it was very narrow, barely wide enough for him to stretch his arms out. An underground tunnel. Not very encouraging, as the last time he had been in one of those he'd nearly been eaten by a monster he'd considered a myth.

Putting aside the question of how he got there for the moment, Gyousou tried to decide which way looked more likely to get him out. Both ends of the tunnel looked so similar that he just picked one in the end, and came up to a dead end.

He had no way of marking time, and grew increasingly more desperate to escape from the underground maze. He'd figured out he was in a mine, either semi-abandoned or completely deserted, that stretched through the entire mountain. The mine shafts would suddenly end, or join another at an odd place which would in its turn suddenly end, making it very difficult for Gyousou to navigate them. He carved symbols on the entrances and walls of any place he'd visited to distinguish them from ones he hadn't, but the tunnels seemed never ending and often circled back to one he'd already marked, making Gyousou wonder morbidly there was any entrance at all, or if it had collapsed.

He had no food or water, as he certainly had not prepared for the possibility of being teleported to the middle of a labyrinth, and though as an immortal this couldn't kill him that was a small consolation to the gnawing in his stomach. He felt his body succumb to fatigue, but never gave up and kept looking for the exit. Doubts and fears assaulted him over how he had come to be here in the first place, yet he managed to shove them to the back of his mind in the category labelled 'To Be Dealt with Once I Get out Of Here'.

He was beginning to detect a fresher quality to the air, and surmised that he was heading in the right direction. He was just about to start exploring a new tunnel when he felt the air behind him stir and his reflexes sprang into action.

The man he was pointing a sword at and who was pointing a sword at him was none other than Asen. Of course it would be. Gyousou had noticed in the battle the rebels seemed just walk right through the Right soldiers, who were completely unharmed. He'd also had more than one Right soldier 'accidentally' almost kill him instead of the rebels. Having Asen appear before him was almost a relief; he had spent a lot of time planning what to do to the man while wandering around in the dark for who knows how long.

Asen didn't seem the least perturbed by the murderous intent radiating off Gyousou's fatigued body. On the contrary, he reached into his robe and pulled out something that Gyousou had seen once before in the moonlight of the Yellow Sea.

_Kouri …_

There was no mistaking the double-pronged pearl kirin horn, still short and underdeveloped. Gyousou felt his blood run cold as if the sight had replaced it with ice-water, and his heart seemed to have given up beating altogether, perhaps sensing its beats were now numbered.

His thoughts froze solid and all that his mind would process was, _How could you?_

He must have said it aloud because Asen smirked and, instead of replying, swung at him. Gyousou automatically raised his sword to block, and it was sent flying. In a moment Asen's blade would decapitate him. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

But instead of dying he fell.


	6. Ch5: Slipping the Snare

_Those who have succeeded at anything and don't mention luck are kidding themselves. ~Larry King_

Ch5: Slipping the Snare

The scene surrounding him was surreal; the level-headed heads of government bickered like schoolchildren as they fought over what to do next and how to deal with this unprecedented situation. Asen learned that not only were Taiki and Gyousou's whereabouts and wellbeing unknown, but the shoku had killed or critically injured the Chousai, the three Sankou, the minister of Heaven, and every other major leader who could have stepped in during the crisis. His plans may have failed, but this situation far exceeded his wildest fantasies.

Nobody questioned him. Not when he presented the 'hakuchi foot' and declared the king dead, not when the Chousai died of his 'wounds', not when he took over the relief effort and then every other aspect of government, not when he moved to the Inner Palace where king resided, not even when he sent a report to the eleven other kingdoms announcing the king of Tai's death (something the phoenixes of other kingdoms should have reported if the king had actually died). The complete lack of opposition was stunning. At first Asen was grateful for the sheer chance that let him take over the government unquestioned with nothing but a bird's foot. After the initial surprise was over, he began congradulate himself on his plans. So what if the shoku hadn't been part of them? It was the result of the assassination on Taiki, so therefore it was something that he had caused. It was also because of his quick thinking that he was able to convince everyone he had the hakuchi's foot and the king was dead.

But Asen wasn't content. He'd secretly moved the hakuchi to the Inner Palace, and the sight of it hopping around perkily burned his mouth with bile. He might be heading the government, but somewhere out there Gyousou and Taiki were still alive. He carried the kirin horn on him always, and the faint weight in his robes kept him constantly alert. The horn would be eaten by Gouran if Taiki died, and as time dragged on it became clear to Asen that horn wounds on kirin were not fatal after all. However, at the same time, the horn is the source of a kirin's power. Taiki had caused a shoku and fled to either Hourai or Kan, but he no longer had the power to cause another one.

Taiki was stuck there. He couldn't return.

This brought his plans concerning Taiki to an impassible stalemate. Asen considered the destruction of his careful planning galling, but Taiki himself remaining alive was only an annoyance in that meant Gyousou might still be. Asen had never had any interest in Taiki as anything other than a convenient method to kill his enemy.

Gyousou was different. Asen truly hated Gyousou, and – rather than his plans going awry – what Asen truly could not condone was Gyousou's continued existence. He went to see the hakuchi each day, hoping to find its dead body, only to be filled with leaden rage.

Finally he received reports from his spies that Gyousou had been sighted. Asen wasted no time in barring everyone from the Inner Palace and catching the fastest youjuu available to Bun.

His subordinates pointed him to the gemstone fountains of Mt. Kan'you, the only ones still active, and Asen smiled sardonically. Of course. Mt. Kan'you was close to Rin'u, where Gyousou's camp had been set up. It was also had as many passages as a beehive and was filled with a million dead ends from parts that had been excavated years ago, creating a labyrinth effect that made it well-nigh impossible to find the sole exit. Fortunately, Asen had a map and a local miner who had noticed the strange insignias – navigational markings used by the military – appearing in the long forgotten shafts.

"In there." The man nodded gruffly to Asen. "I'd go meself, 'cept if it be a bandit or some unsavory character I'd be dead in a heartbeat. Never was much good with a blade."

"You are sure that these marks started appearing around the time the king disappeared?"

"'Course! Elsewise I wouldn't of gone to the army, would I?"

"Did you tell anyone else?"

"Just me wife. Don't worry, I told her to keep it secret. Don't want the rebels to get word of this, if that do be the king."

"I see." Asen pushed his hand over the man's mouth and ran his sword through his chest. The man fell to the floor gasping and clutching at the wound. He turned to one of the soldiers accompanying him and hissed, "You there! Go find this man's wife and silence her too! The rest of you, stay here. If Gyousou runs out, don't let him escape."

He followed the shaft alone silently, creeping along in the dark until he could make out the shape of a white haired man peering down a tunnel that branched off. Asen struck from behind.

Gyousou reacted instantaneously, pivoting before his sword actually contacted. Asen's sword sliced through Gyousou's leather belt and drew blood, but it was only a flesh wound, albeit one close to the spine and stomach organs.

In less time than it takes to draw a breath Gyousou's sword was out of its scabbard and aimed at Asen's head. Asen's sword was aimed at Gyousou's heart. A stalemate, but Asen wasn't the one who was exhausted, starving, dehydrated, and wounded. The stalemate was only temporary, and it was in his favour.

"So it was you." The icy steel in Gyousou's voice made a thrill of fear creep through the marrow of Asen's bones. He quashed it angrily. Gyousou was not superior to him; there was nothing to be afraid of. "I knew the soldiers of the Right were sustaining suspiciously low casualties."

"… Aren't you going to ask why?"

"Are the motives of an insurrectionist relevant to justice?"

He gave a feral smile, "Perhaps not. But surely you must be curious as to why I would go so far as to do _this_."

With the hand not aiming a sword at Gyousou Asen produced the prize he kept hidden in his robes. Gyousou blanched and instinctively took a step backwards in horror.

His voice was nothing greater than the faintest hint of a whisper, "How could you?"

The sight of the bloody, severed horn was enough to loosen Gyousou's grip on his hilt in shock, and Asen took the chance to press his attack. Gyousou belatedly raised his sword to block, but Asen sent the blade flying from numb fingers and was just about to deal his death blow when…

There was a searing pain in his left hand, as if the kirin horn had just exited a smith's furnace, and the floor beneath Gyousou opened to golden hued clouds. He fell, and the clouds disappeared just as the tip of Gyousou's head did, leaving Asen standing there alone.

It all happened so quickly it that had Asen blinked he would have thought Gyousou had disappeared into thin air. The round opening of gold had only been there for a moment, but in the pitch dark it had been strikingly visible. This must have been what had happened before, except in broad daylight and the heat of battle no one had seen the ground change.

Asen's fingers automatically released the source of their pain, and surveying his already blistering hand he deemed he had third degree burns. He sheathed his sword and used his right hand to clumsily wrap the horn in strips he tore from his clothing. The smell of burnt flesh and burning fabric filled the air.

Asen made a brief search of the surrounding area, but was unsurprised to not find his prey. He stalked out past his soldiers and the dying local, barking angrily at them. He left the local to die there slowly and painfully. The man was loyal to Gyousou, he deserved it.

Watching the spitting-mad usurper retreat the local man glanced back down the mine, barely daring to hope. He rose unsteadily to his feet and lurched along the path peering into the darkness, looking for somebody. As if by luck, his shoes hit something that made a metallic _clang_ instead of the gravelly _clunk_ the loose rocks normally did. His eyes, accustomed to working in the dark for hours, had no trouble picking out the shape of half a belt. The local knelt down, black spots appearing in his vision from the pain of doing so, and scooped the belt up to examine it. It was the kind of thing only a rich person, such as a king, would own: the finest leather studded with black silver and graced with a finely crafted metal clasp engraved with a fine galloping horse. He glanced around and, confirming there was neither a corpse nor living man nearby, clutched it to his chest and jostled back up the path as fast as his injuries let him. He knew he could never hope to reach Rin'u in his state, so he settled for the next best option: stick the belt in a half-finished shipment of gems. Then the man collapsed, and didn't move again.

The next day his co-workers found his corpse collapsed inside and rumours spread that the rebels had holed up in the mines killing any who entered. Only when the crops failed twice did the people cautiously resume mining, just in time for the gemstone fountains to dry up. The box was sent as it was to Han for whatever profit they could make from it.

The Han artisan who opened it and started to wash the raw stones felt his fingers brush something odd, and frowned in perplexity at the half-belt he pulled out. Examining the artwork carefully, it seemed to him that only an extraordinarily skilled artisan could have produced it, and so he sent it to his master, who sent it to his master, who sent it to his master, until by what seemed like pure chance it came to the attention of the Ministry of Winter and the hands of the most highly skilled craftsman in Han, who recognized it as something he made specifically for the coronation of the king of Tai. The craftsman presented it to the king of Han, who traced the trail of people who handled it back down to the original artisan. Upon learning the belt's strange appearance, the king of Han made inquiries that were never answered to Hakkei Palace. The king of Han kept the bloodstained half-belt, pondering what had become of his austere colleague.


	7. Ch6: Fated Interventions

_Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. - Ralph Waldo Emerson_

Ch6: Fated Interventions

This time the golden tunnel was longer, and Gyousou fell for about a minute or so. It was enough time for him to process that his life had been spared, and wonder what was at the end this time.

Then he was standing in the middle of a forest, surprising considering Bun Province didn't have any. Also, the battle with the rebels had been in April, but the ground at his feet was carpeted in reds and oranges and yellows while the wind blew swirling leaves off trees into his stunned face.

Gyousou tried to coolly and logically work thought events. Asen was now indisputably the mastermind who had planned everything. He had killed Taiki and cut off his horn at some point, presumably to kill Gyousou. When this had happened would determine how long Gyousou had left and whether or not he could do anything to stop Asen in the meantime. Asen had also clearly meant that battle in April to be the death of him, but that golden tunnel had appeared and Gyousou was swept away to… wherever that had been. Asen had tracked him down to there and was just about to kill him when Gyousou was swept away again.

What was that golden tunnel of clouds and light? The first time Gyousou had not known what to make of it at all, but this time it had blatantly saved his life.

Whatever it was, it gave Gyousou hope. Hope that maybe someone somewhere had saved him for a purpose, that Tai was not completely damned yet. He was still in shock at seeing Taiki's severed horn, but he was also the king of Tai, even if the countdown clock to the end of his reign had begun ticking. Someone somewhere had saved his doomed self, presumably so he could put the country back in order before he died.

He checked directions quickly, using the horizon level sun as a rough guide. It was either dawn or dusk, and if he waited a little while he could determine east from west, but Gyousou had no time to spare. At best he had a year left to try and fix things as best he could. He began walking towards the sun, careful to stay in the same direction. He would keep walking that way until it eventually led him out of the forest, and to somewhere with people.

It was dusk, Gyousou quickly discovered, and he was heading west. After the sun set he used the stars – now in the positions for October – to guide him as he walked through the night. He couldn't afford to rest in the open since he had no sword.

At what he judged to be about ten in the morning the next day he saw smoke rising over the tree tops and headed there. Whatever the loyalties of the people living there were, they were unlikely to recognize this dirty vagrant as the king. The smoke came from a small cabin, and when he banged on the door it was opened by a very startled old lumberjack.

"What the devil are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?" The man had the sloppy look of someone at home that doesn't expect any company, or nosy neighbours.

Gyousou tried to look scared and uncertain, but the best that could be said for the attempt was he didn't look particularly intimidating. "I'm lost."

"You sure are, if you ended up here." The man held the door open wider, and smoothed his ruffled sleep clothing. "Come in and eat something, you look ready to keel over any second!"

The bland porridge Gyousou was given tasted better than anything made by the most skilled cooks in the realm. The lumberjack gave him seconds and probed him with questions. Gyousou asked him first for a map, since any lies he made up would need to – at the very least – be centered in the right province. He wasn't particularly surprised when the man pulled up a map of Jou, since lumber was its main industry. The spot the man pointed to was right next to Bun Province, on the other side of Mt. Kan'you.

Gyousou made up some lie about travelling into the woods with his friends and getting separated, then wandering around looking for them. The lumberjack harrumphed.

"You young'uns! Don't you know when you get lost you're s'pposed to stay in one place and wait for someone to find you!"

"I apologize for my lack of foresight. I will take your words into account and be sure to thoroughly contemplate my actions and exercise proper judgment in the future."

The old lumberjack looked taken aback, and Gyousou remembered belatedly that he was pretending to be a peasant, and peasants don't talk like courtiers.

_Time to change to topic._ "So, you the only one living 'round here or there others?"

"My son lives here as well. He's out working, but as I've come down with a wee cold thought I'd better rest today. Lucky for you, I guess, since usually no one's home in the day."

"No neighbours?"

"Who'd want to live in the middle of a forest? There's a couple other cabins dotted around, but the nearest town takes a day in the cart to get to." Something just occurred to the man. "Say, in a couple days my son and I are driving into town with our load. You need to rest up and eat up, by the look of you, so you can do that for two days and then we'll take you with us. Once you're in town you can find a way back to your friends. Can't really have you wandering around the forest alone now, what with all that's been going on since the king died."

The king spat out his porridge, "What!"

"Yeah, since the king died everything's gone downhill. Crops failed so everyone's drawing their purse strings tighter and it's cutting into our business, and now some malcontents started up a rebellion here in Jou. The new general isn't handling it very well so they sent for General Ryuu, 'cept apparently it was her that offed the His Majesty and Taiho so..."

"_Risai?! _Risai kill m… the king and Taiho?"

"Yeah, so now the people in Kouki say she's accused of high treason and needs to see General Jou, but she ran off. They say she also burnt down the Nisei castle and killed everyone there, to try and steal the hakuchi's foot."

Gyousou's porridge laden spoon was forgotten halfway to his open mouth. "Asen accused Risai of high treason?"

The old man swatted him lightly. "Don't be so disrespectful! It's General Jou and General Ryuu, don't address them so familiarly! And hurry up and eat that before it goes cold!"

Gyousou quickly stuck the spoonful in his mouth, and then said, "Do you know where General Ryuu was last sighted?"

"No idea. Pretty sure it wasn't around here, though, so don't worry."

Two days could not pass quick enough. Gyousou built up his strength as best he could in the time and rested uneasily. What he really wanted to do was track down where Risai was last seen and join forces, but he was currently in no state to do so. With the popular belief the king was dead added to his distinctly un-regal beggarlike appearance he would only be able to enlist the help of those who knew his face, and the only retainers he trusted to not betray him were the ones Asen had put a head price on. Risai was ideal, since she was also a military commander and, as general of the capital's Provincial Army, would know the situation of Hakkei Palace up to her arrest.

At the town the best answer he got was that Risai had been arrested a fortnight after crossing the Zui-Jou border, and had escaped on her kijuu during the night as she was being escorted to her trial. So he started discreetly searching for her in areas around the borderer line, but she was remaining well hidden. He found her whereabouts a few times, but only after she'd been forced to flee the area.

To make matters worse, Asen had put everyone he trusted on Gyousou's trail. The only reason he ever managed to fall asleep at night was because of the golden tunnels. Every time his pursuers caught up to him and he was placed in immediate danger one would open up and he would be whisked away. He still had no idea who or what was causing them, but he'd worked out a pattern in where he'd end up. It was never too far away from where he'd been, and it was always an area devoid of humans. He got so good at predicting where it'd take him that he began to set up camp with the nearest deserted area in mind, in case he was attacked in the night.

At the same time Gyousou felt the sands of time running out of him. How much more time did he have left? Taiki must have been killed just before Asen had appeared before him, because it was once again October and nearing the day Gyousou had come across the cabin in the woods. He wasn't sure if there was anything he could accomplish in the time remaining, but he felt duty bound to continuing seeking out Risai. At the very least, she deserved an apology for letting her down.

He finally caught her trail: she was staying with an old hermit and his granddaughter in an isolated cottage that was only a day's walk away. At this point Gyousou expected to die any day now, and so he rushed towards there through the night.

As he was racing along the road an arrow flew at him from a nearby tree, and all of a sudden he was falling through gold.

_Perfect!_ He thought bitterly, _Just perfect! Once I arrive at (probably) those crags on the cliff by the ocean the locals claim is haunted, it'll take me a week to walk back! I don't have that much time left!_

For a while now each time it appeared the tunnel became longer. The last one had taken a good hour to fall through, and he wondered if he wasn't misremembering that the first time he had still been swinging his sword when he arrived. He stared impatiently into the golden hued clouds, which he had discovered occasionally showed glimpses of things outside, usually things in between his origin and destination.

When he arrived it was at the crags on the cliff, and he turned towards the direction the cottage was in, intending to storm back there and hope he made it in time, when suddenly he was falling through gold. _Again._

He was aggravated at this unexpectedness and anxious about what it could mean. Unless some random person decided to go for a stroll on the top of the haunted crags _by a cliff in the dark_ and decided to murder some random stranger there, it meant that either the golden tunnels were malfunctioning or Asen had worked out the pattern to where he would appear. Both were terrifying ideas.

The clouds normally flowed up around him as he fell, but all of a sudden they jerked like a horse being reigned in and began to flow up only very, very slowly. Then, with a shudder, they were completely stationary. Gyousou flailed his arms and legs like a swimmer, but he couldn't move an inch forward or backward in the tunnels.

With a dawning horror, Gyousou realized he was stuck.


	8. Ch7: Predicting the Outcome

_The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck. - Anthony Robbins_

Ch7: Predicting the Outcome

After that Asen kept Taiki's horn in an oven mit. He was afraid to leave it anywhere in case someone saw it, and kept it tucked in his deepest robes, where he felt the burning heat keenly each time he sent people to kill Gyousou. The burning would continue for a minute before it would abruptly stop and he would receive a report that the enemy had disappeared into thin air.

It made Asen so frustrated he threw it to the ground and stomped on it to smash the thing, but only cracked it slightly before his shoe melted and he needed to jerk his foot away. The horn hissed along the crack like red-hot iron placed in water, and started emitting smoke. After that each time the horn would glow white-hot longer and more dimly, and made hissing noises the whole time.

The horn, despite being severed and cracked, still possessed some kind of strange magic that let it transport Gyousou to a new location. He'd never heard of kirin possessing any powers like this, but this was such an unprecedented situation he couldn't conclude for certain what the cause was. Who was to say if it was a special power of black kirin, or something only broken horns do, or something that only happens in dire need?

The horn wasn't causing shoku. Shoku connect this world and another, and Gyousou always remained in Tai. Moreover there were not the damages to the surrounding areas as a result of _here _and _there_ mixing. But it was similar, a wrinkle in reality that let the impossible happen and connected two places that normally were separate. It seemed to work automatically, like a swing will go down if you put more weigh on one end, if Gyousou's life was threatened he would be removed from the area. However, anything not immediately life threatening didn't tip the scale. If Taiki was controlling these disappearances he surely would have removed Gyousou the moment he noticed Asen, but that didn't happen. It was the horn itself, Asen was sure, that moved Gyousou based on pure instinct to protect the king.

In that case many questions opened up. How exactly did the horn know Gyousou was in danger, and what made it decide what was life threatening and what wasn't? Moreover, how did it know where it was safe to place him? Putting aside transporting Gyousou to the middle of a volcano or the ocean, there were never any strange sightings of someone appearing in the midst of a crowd, and he was never transported to Asen's troops. Or his own for that matter.

All the times he caught track of Gyousou he was in the same general area. Asen didn't believe Gyousou would backtrack to keep coming back to the same place, so he never left. In that case, the horn didn't move him far. It must be moving him to the nearest safe place, but how did it determine what was safe?

The reports from the places where he'd caught Gyousou's trail always were the same: a man wandered out of the blue into town and started asking questions about Risai. Asen was not surprised; declaring her the assassin had pretty much guaranteed she wasn't involved to anyone who knew the king wasn't even dead. Risai's whereabouts were placed at priority number 2, after Gyousou's; he couldn't risk them joining forces.

At the same time it gave him a clear lead. If he found Risai, Gyousou was also bound to be heading there. And, taking into account all the accounts of him wandering in out of the blue as well as the original location of the mostly-abandoned mines, he could roughly predict that Gyousou would appear in a remote area each time he vanished. But it didn't have to be completely deserted. He had stationed men in the areas he thought Gyousou would reappear in as a test, and as long as there were less than half a dozen his predictions remained correct. Then the horn just searched for an area with low population density, thus a low chance of there being enemies nearby, and didn't take into account other factors such as who was present or whether they were armed.

Knowing all that was more than enough to lay a trap with.

Leaving Risai be for the moment, he places archers along all the routes to her hideaway and waited where Gyousou was sure to be transported. In the dark by the crags it was easy to spot the momentary golden glow. Hidden in the shadows, his archer released the arrow and Gyousou was whisked away almost as soon as he appeared. Asen laid out the horn on a cloth, and handed a specially made massive solid diamond sludge hammer to the muscle man he had brought with him.

The first stroke created cracks like in thick ice, the second shattered the horn completely. The man pounded the fragments over and over until they were as fine as sand, then Asen gathered the cloth up carefully without spilling any and tied a string around the bundle. The horn was completely broken, and the next day he received reports from his spies that Gyousou had not arrived in any of the nearby deserted areas.

It was almost two years since Asen took over the government, and now the true king of Tai could be said to be both in the country and not. By the time the second anniversary rolled around the country was completely infested with youma that had appeared exponentially since October, and no one could leave or come.


	9. Ch8: In Check

_In the greatest misfortune oft lies the greatest hope. - EDWARD COUNSEL, __Maxims_

Ch8: In Check

Death would have been preferable to this unceasing torment.

The seasons passed in Tai, unbearably sever winters followed by unforgiving summer, followed by a winter still harsher than the previous, and so forth. Gyousou had no idea why he was not struck down yet, except that maybe Heaven couldn't reach him in this warped non-space. He cursed his fate.

The golden clouds continued to show him images of Tai, and the scenes pierced his heart. The villages burned until the sky was thick with smoke, crops failed and people either starved or froze, and hordes of youma preyed upon the population like wolves let loose in a sheep pen. And all he, the shepherd they trusted to protect them, could do was watch from his despicably safe position.

While he had at least had the hope of mustering those he trusted Gyousou had been able to keep active and distract himself, but now he was unable to keep his thoughts from turning to his kirin. Poor guileless eleven-year-old Kouri.

His regret was a knife in the chest. He should have told Kouri his suspicions. He should have placed better protection around him. He should have not left the capital at all. All the shoulds in the world would make no difference, but his mind gnawed at them in self-inflicted torture.

How could anyone kill that child? That innocent, sweet child who never hurt anyone and just wanted others to be happy? And then cut his horn off and carry it around like some kind of sick trophy? He had suspected Asen hated him, but hadn't considered the possibility of him being a complete psychopath.

There was nothing he could do but gaze into the swirling images of despair while his thoughts turned as black as starless night. There was nothing he could do. It was all over. This was the end of Tai, he was sure, and to helplessly watch it unfold was his punishment. He'd promised prosperity and instead brought destruction. He'd betrayed the hopes placed in him by those dear people who were loyal to him, those that he saw lying charred or hanging from a noose. And Taiki, who had trusted him and been tragically betrayed for it.

Gyousou truly felt death was preferable to continuing an existence like his.


	10. Ch9: Accidental Fortune

_Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit. - R.E. Shay_

Ch9: Fortuitous Accident

It was quite by accident Asen discovered his greatest weapon.

He had returned flushed from victory and dumped the cloth containing the powdered horn on a nearby table, then went to bed content. He'd left men monitoring the deserted areas just in case, but he was sure the horn was broken beyond any hope. He dreamed peacefully that night, certain Gyousou was worse than dead.

The next morning his handmaiden came in to find him still asleep for once, and went about her duties in a sense of relief. Originally Asen had been a charming man to wait upon, but ever since the king's death he had become moody and unpredictable. Not a week ago he had thrown the teacup she had tried to present to him at her and screamed at her to leave, one hand clutching his robes. He did that quite often, and one time she peeked in to see him throw an oven mit to the ground and crazily stomp on it, swearing violently, before yanking his foot away with a howl and snarl. His emotional instability made her jumpy, and she was glad that he was for once not watching her every move. The girl was filling a decorative basin with the morning face wash water when she noticed a strange package by the pitcher. Opening it revealed a strange white powdery substance which she sniffed, then ran the grains of through her fingers. It felt like bath salt, so she added it to the basin of water.

The tiny pieces didn't dissolve like she expected, instead the specs floated at the top in swirls. She stuck her finger in and started to stir when she jerked it out with a hiss like she had been burned. The pieces began to shine like snow reflecting the sunlight and the water gave off a diffused golden glow. She screamed and dropped the basin onto the table, sloshing the water up the sides but not spilling any. Asen was beside her in seconds.

"What have you done!"

"I just… I didn't… the salt…" the girl cried incoherently. Asen threw her into his closet and barricaded the door with a heavy chair, ignoring the muffled cries and banging she made. She would be dealt with once he ascertained the damage she had caused.

It seemed to him the golden hue of the water swirled into shapes. Shapes of landscapes, of people, of places in the palace. None stayed more than a second. He saw Risai standing outside the burnt cottage of the old hermit, he saw Sougen pouring tiredly over maps, people gathered in huddles at court while glancing over their shoulders, a roomful of short trimmed black haired preteen boys all dressed identically sitting in neat rows while an adult drew on a board at the front, and many things he didn't recognize or understand. His eyes widening at a brief glimpse of Tansui – one of the loyalists who had eluded him – standing at the charred gates of Saku County.

Asen ran out to the room of the court he had seen and peering in through the door crack he saw the same people as in the basin of water huddling and glancing over their shoulders as they whispered urgently.

Asen hurried back to his room and sent orders to those loyal to him in I Province to go to Saku and arrest Tansui. They found him there, and it was done.

The water showed the present.

Asen was so excited about his discovery and its promises that he didn't notice that the chair barricading his closet had been moved back to its original location and the servant girl was missing.

He threatened the family of the greatest glass blower in the realm and forced her to make him a container for the water. Afterwards he blocked the doors and burned her house to the ground with everyone still inside.

The seamless container of transparent glass was in the shape of a globe and a little bigger than a baby's head. When settled it looked like an empty snow globe with the pieces at the top instead of the bottom, but shake it and it looked completely different. At the beginning as the pieces swirled rapidly the images would change one from another quickly, but as they began to slow so too did rate of the changing projections, until at last there would be just one dragging on slowly until it faded away as the flecs of kirin horn completely settled. There was no way to control what it showed, so he needed peeled eyes to discern the information relevant to him amidst the countless incomprehensible images. But his patience was greatly rewarded.

He put down the secret gatherings of loyalists that the globe showed him and found his enemies in their most secure hiding places. No one knew how he did it. Those who evaded him grew paranoid of double agents, unable to understand any other reason for their plans always falling apart at the last minute other than betrayal. They called it a sickness, one that infected people and changed their loyalties. And it did start to happen. He sent letters to the provincial lords sending detailed descriptions of their day-to-day lives, and his inexplicably acquired intelligence scared some and awed others into joining him. After all, the true king had only lasted a year, and Asen was clearly the king in all but name. Even among those who knew the hakuchi's foot was fake, it had been so long since the hakuchi had been seen that no one was sure whether it was still alive. Gyousou must be dead by now, they justified, look at all the youma swarming! And since the king was already dead, why not join the new one, the one who seemed to be omniscient?

This only further solidified the notion in his enemies' minds that their defeats were due to their trusted comrades. Those that opposed him were too afraid of traitors to join forces, and they scattered over the realm seeking to save their own skins. He slowly was shown the whereabouts of these remnants, and was gradually apprehending them. Very few of the leaders the people might rally around remained, and all the strongholds and safe places they might have gathered at he burned.

With the weapon made from Taiki's horn at his disposal, Asen was invincible.


	11. Ch10: The Wheel Turns

_Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. - Napoleon Hill_

Ch10: The Wheel Turns

A wind blew through the stationary clouds, the dagger cold wind of Tai winter that beckoned death. Gyousou looked up directly into it and it pierced his face with a familiar unwelcome greeting. The clouds above him were blown to the side by the ice wind and a hand white as death reached out towards him, which Gyousou took without hesitation. The hand was warmer than it looked, and gentle. It liften him upwards, and the clouds he sailed past appeared to be flowing downwards.

Four years in the dilute golden glow of the tunnel left him unprepared for the blinding whiteness of snow in direct sunlight. Gyousou shut his eyes tightly and his vision was still filled with green-black after glow. Waiting a moment, he opened them slowly and forced them to adjust. He was not, to his great surprise, dead after all, unless the afterlife looked exactly like a snow blanketed version of the crags he had vanished from all those years ago. The hand holding his let go, and Gyousou turned to see who it was, if it wasn't the Angel of Death.

At first he didn't recognize him, and then he just couldn't believe it.

It must be a dream. He had spent too many years mourning to believe it was real. This was some cruel hallucination.

"Gyousou-sama," the voice was a light tenor, no longer childishly high, "I'm sorry. I was such a child, and everything I tried to do caused everyone problems. I lost my horn too, when I was attacked, so I'm powerless; I can't even transform or make new shirei anymore, and I also lost Gouran and Sanshi. I'm sorry that I'm so useless and pathetic."

Strange though it might be, it was Taiki's apologies that convinced Gyousou this wasn't a hallucination; only the real Kouri would apologize for almost being assassinated.

Gyousou felt warmth spreading through his shocked body, and his shoulders started shaking, though whether he was laughing or crying he couldn't tell. Taiki started to apologize even more profusely, and Gyousou drew him into a bear hug. Taiki took a step backwards in surprise – the king of Tai was hardly prone to excessive displays of emotion after all – and then leaned into it. It felt like they had been apart for much longer than six years.

At length Gyousou drew back and surveyed Taiki intensely, noting all the changes in his seventeen-year-old appearance. He felt a dim pang of regret that he hadn't been there to watch him grow up, but was still so exhilarated at the revelation Kouri was _alive_ that nothing else seemed nearly as important.

"How in the world did you find me?" Kirin had the power to sense their ruler, but not only had Taiki lost his horn, his ruler had been trapped in some inaccessible plane.

Taiki cocked his head. "But you were just right here. I tried calling you, but I don't think you heard me, so I reach out and pulled you over."

"Your Majesty?" Gyousou jumped, he hadn't even noticed Risai standing dumbly off to the side watching the reunion. Clearly he had gotten too used to the definite safety of the golden tunnels. "If I might interject, the Taiho suddenly started calling for you and then reached out and there was suddenly a – I don't know what you would call it. A hole? A golden hole? There was a golden hole in the air and the Taiho stuck his arm into it, and a moment later Your Majesty stepped out." Risai shook her head in amazement.

Taiki looked at her in surprise. "Really?"

Risai ducked her head with a grin. "Really. And as Your Majesty appears to have emerged from some place with more temperate weather, might I suggest we continue our conversation once we've taken shelter?"

Gyousou was still in the clothes he had put on in October four years ago that did little against the winter cold. He was already frozen, though he paid it no mind; he was used to discomfort and was too happy to be bothered by something like cold, even the deathly cold of a Tai winter. But Taiki looked at him in concern, so they set off to the abandoned cottage where they brought each other up to date on the past six years.

"… and since all the resistance movements failed, I journeyed abroad and sought the assistance of the queen of Kei."

"The Royal Kei?" Gyousou had never met the Royal Kei because when she was enthroned two years before him Tai had no king to attend her coronation, and her country had been too unstable to attend his two years later, however rumour had it she was so incompetent she just secluded herself in the Inner Palace and refused to attend to government affairs. Consequently he saw no reason why Risai would go to the Royal Kei for help, since Kei was impoverished and the two countries had no diplomatic relations beyond the friendship of Taiki and Keiki. En was a much better bet as far as international aid went, seeing as they were closer, wealthier, and more stable.

"The queen of Kei you are familiar with was struck down by Heaven two years ago, and the new queen is a sixteen-year-old taika pulled straight out of Hourai by Kei Taiho. I thought she would be sympathetic to our plight, or at least the Taiho's."

It occurred to Gyousou he had more catching up to do on current events than he'd imagined. "What sort of person is the new queen of Kei?"

Risai smiled. "Young and inexperienced, but diligent. And very, very generous in her help to Tai. We wouldn't be here without her. She used an Imperial Treasure to save my life, and then organized a search party to Hourai for the Taiho consisting of seven kirin, which is how we found and returned him."

"You don't say." It was truly impressive that seven kingdoms been convinced to send their Saiho on a mad quest to scour an entire country for one person that may or may not be there. The new Royal Kei might be inexperienced, but she certainly was able to get things done. He made a mental note to monitor the economy in Kei once he was back on his throne, and increase exports there if it improved. Virtually nothing got exported to Kei since the citizens of that poorest of the kingdoms had been struggling just to survive day to day for the last three hundred years, but maybe they would start building up surpluses again. "Aside from Kei, what other countries were involved?"

"En, Han, Ren, Sou, Sai, and Kyou. Hou and Kou are both currently vacant, and Ryuu and Shun refused to participate. It was the Ren Taiho who located the Taiho."

Gyousou was not a man who enjoyed being in debt, and he filed those names away. Perhaps one day the opportunity to pay off his debts would arise, but right now there was nothing he could spare for other countries, nor anything they needed from him.

Risai continued her explanation, outlining the circumstances in more detail. Then Taiki told about Asen's betrayal, the shoku, and his amnesia and the years he spent in Hourai. He looked sad when speaking about his family and so Gyousou tried to look neutral, but inwardly he was steaming. Those idiots had been feeding his kirin _meat_! No wonder Taiki looked like he was recovering from a serious illness: he had just spent the last six years being poisoned! It was too bad that they had been killed, since it was unintentional poisoning, but he sympathized with the shirei.

Gazing across as Taiki recounted the shirei becoming paranoid and the subsequent deaths that occurred, Gyousou was filled with wonder that Taiki could feel sorry for those people. Sure, they might not have known he was a kirin, but that didn't really change anything. It was like being the judge and saying after the execution, "Oops, turns out that person wasn't guilty after all, my bad!" Maybe after the shirei went berserk and started massacring barely related people sympathy was warranted, but Taiki actually looked sorry that the people who pushed him out a third story window had died!

Gyousou was the last one to tell his story, and it was a very strange one to tell since he didn't understand a lot of what had happened to him. He still didn't know what the tunnels had been, or what caused them, or why they suddenly malfunctioned, or why Taiki had been able to reach him there. In any case, if he could find Gyousou and create magical portals then Taiki must be recovering his powers, which was reassuring. The lack of shirei was worrisome, and Gyousou was frankly amazed that a one armed general and shirei-less kirin had been able to survive the infested nest of youma that Tai had become. The sooner Taiki recovered enough to subdue new shirei the better.

In the meantime there were a lot of worries. He had no sword and was so out of shape from four years of complete immobility that he doubted he could wield one adequately anytime soon. Risai had a sword, but was missing her dominant arm. Taiki was right back to square one, being unable to either transform or depend on shirei. Asen had been running the country so long that in the minds of the people he was the king. Maybe a tyrant king, but someone so powerful they were too afraid to resist. Among those they could summon as allies there was no way to say if there were traitors, and somehow Asen had intelligence about every single resistance movement against him. It certainly was not an optimistic situation.

But it was no longer completely hopeless. He had at least two people he could without a shadow of a doubt depend on. Risai had miraculously brought Taiki back relatively safe and relatively well, and together they had found him who was impossible to find. Gyousou no longer had to helplessly watch his beloved homeland suffer disaster after disaster. Finally he could act.


End file.
